Tag: Diane Ladd

Sophie and the Rising Sun is set in South Carolina at the start of WWII just before and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A Japanese-American man, Grover Ohta (Takashi Yamaguchi) is dumped, beaten and bruised, on a bench at a bus stop. Continue reading “Review: Sophie and the Rising Sun”

I Dream Too Much is a coming of age story about 20-year-old Dora (Eden Brolin). I almost abandoned the immature but charming Dora in the first few minutes, but I held on. I was rewarded with a good story. Minor spoilers ahead. Continue reading “Review: I Dream Too Much”

Sophie and the Rising Sun is a tale of interracial love during WW II. As you know, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered WW II, American discrimination against anyone of Japanese extraction grew to a fever pitch. Most Japanese Americans were hauled off to internment camps. Flash forward 70 years, and we’re talking about doing the same thing to Muslims. We seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Continue reading “Watch This: Trailer for Sophie and the Rising Sun”

Joy stars Jennifer Lawrence, with Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Röhm and Dascha Polanco. We’ve seen the names Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro together in films before and it has meant Oscar nominations for Jennifer Lawrence when we do. This film is her 3rd with director David O. Russell.

I’m not sure we need to know much beside the pedigree listed in the first paragraph, but here’s the synopsis for the film:

Joy is the wild story of a family across four generations centered on the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, pave the road in this intense emotional and human comedy about becoming a true boss of family and enterprise facing a world of unforgiving commerce. Allies become adversaries and adversaries become allies, both inside and outside the family, as Joy’s inner life and fierce imagination carry her through the storm she faces.

Joy tries to teach her children humility. “Don’t ever thing the world owes you anything because it doesn’t,” she says. “The world doesn’t owe you a thing.”

We need more of this attitude in the world today. There doesn’t seem to be a shred of humility anywhere in the United States. In the film Joy overcomes insurmountable obstacles to become the founder of a family empire.

The film is loosely based on the real-life Joy Mangano, who appears regularly on the Home Shopping Network selling items as like the “JOY FleXassage™ Body Massager Pillow with Neck Massager” and her Huggable Hangers, which are HSN’s all-time most popular product.